


Recruiting Scout

by Slybrarian



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: sg_flyboys, M/M, Tok'ra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-16
Updated: 2010-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slybrarian/pseuds/Slybrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cam is sent to recruit someone who may be essential for the upcoming Atlantis expedition: John Sheppard. Of course, since this is John, things are more complicated than they should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recruiting Scout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mazza2869](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Mazza2869).



> Prompt: Blokey Affection, needing sleep, someone is surprised (Pinch hit)
> 
> Beta by Dossier. Based in part on a conversation with Bluflamingo.

Cam felt like a fish out of water at the annual Advanced Aerospace Designs Conference. He had been fine earlier out on the showroom floor, where a hundred different companies were displaying their new gizmos and there were dozens of actual prototypes to look over, but now that the evening reception was underway he was lost. Engineers and even salespeople he could deal with; the crowd of executives, generals, and DOD bureaucrats were another thing entirely. If he'd had a choice, he would have avoided the reception entirely, but he was a man on a mission. He was there to recruit someone that intelligence indicated could be an invaluable member of the SGC. Cam had suggested just beaming the target up, but the powers that be had nixed that, so he had no option but to try a more personal approach.

Cam eventually found the man he was searching for in one corner of the hotel's large reception hall. John looked a lot like he had the last time Cam had seen him. His face was a little more worn, but mostly with laugh lines, and his hair was as wild as ever. He was wearing a well-tailored suit instead of flight gear and seemed just as comfortable in it. The only real difference -- or at least the only outward one -- was the polished gunmetal cane that John was lightly leaning on. Cam had seen the medical reports: shattered left femur, knee damage, hip damage and fractures to several lower vertebrae. It was a wonder John could walk with only a slight limp and a cane. Cam knew from personal experience how bad those sorts of injuries could be. The ones that had almost put him in a wheelchair had been much the same, different in scale but not in kind.

Shortly after getting out of the hospital, John had gone back to school to finish his masters, while simultaneously starting up a business using money from his trust fund. Skylark Industries had rapidly become one of the leading companies for designing and building UAVs and UCAVs of all sizes. Cam had seen a few first-hand, even before the latest series had been unveiled at the conference. The SGC had bought a dozen custom-built mini-choppers to send through the gate in areas the fixed-wing UAVs were ineffective. The SGC had done a thorough investigation of Skylark -- code for "we used alien tech to bug the building and hack their mainframe" -- and determined that John was the lead designer for several of the most advanced craft. That was one reason the SGC was interested in him. Cam was glad to see he hadn't let his injuries get the better of him, but he still had to feel a little sorry for him. Losing the sky wasn't the sort of thing any pilot could get over completely.

_"There but for the grace of God,"_ Cam thought to himself.

_"While I'm flattered, I am not a god,"_ Sipka replied, amusement evident in her voice.

Cam rolled his eyes and told his symbiote, _"I wasn't talking about you."_

_"Oh, that was another of your grandmother's sayings?"_

_"Don't bother with the ignorant alien shtick. I'm on to you."_

_"I'm sure I don't know what you mean,"_ Sipka said. _"Are you going to say hello to your young man?"_

_"He's not my young man,"_ Cam insisted, not that he expected it to do any good. He had given up trying to argue with Sipka about men around the time she decided that she was quite content thinking of herself as female after five hundred years of doing so, and didn't Major Davis have a nice ass? The fact that they usually agreed only made it worse when she got ideas in her little snake head.

Cam waited until John's current conversation partners moved along before he moseyed on over to John's corner. He could tell when John spotted him coming: his eyes lit up and his smile became a little bit bigger and more honest. That could have just been Cam's imagination, though.

"Cameron," John said, shaking Cam's hand.

"John," Cam said. "Good to see you."

"You too." John's eyes flicked to Cam's shoulders. "You made lieutenant colonel already? Congratulations."

"Thanks," Cam said. "I meant to tell you, but you've been a little hard to get in touch with lately." John hadn't exactly cut off contact entirely, but other than the occasional email, he'd largely been running silent since his chopper was shot down outside of Kabul. Cam hadn't even known the extent of John's injuries until recently, just that he had been medically discharged.

John shrugged nonchalantly. "I've been busy."

"Busy. Right." Cam wanted to call John on his bullshit, but he held his tongue. What was done was done and starting a fight wouldn't do either of them any good. "I can imagine why. I hear you're working for the enemy these days," he said, affecting an over-exaggerated hurt look.

John grinned. "I was a chopper pilot, Cam. I was never on the side of the fighter jocks in the first place."

"Still, don't you feel just a little bit embarrassed to be building UAVs?"

"It does feel a bit dirty," John admitted. "Still, they're going to save a lot of lives. Already are, in fact."

"I suppose that's a good excuse," Cam said. "They are pretty impressive. You do good work."

"It's not me," John said, ducking his head a little. "I've got a dozen engineers who do the real work. I mostly boss them around and test fly the remotely piloted planes."

"Uh huh. Sure." Cam knew that John was being self-deprecating, but he couldn't really call him on it. It would be a bit hard to explain how he knew the truth.

Cam was about to try and start some small talk about John's latest flying marvel when something in John's expression stopped him. It wasn't much, just a momentary grimace that was gone a moment after it appeared, but even that much was enough to send up warning flags in Cam's mind. John tended to be stoic to the point of absurdity. Showing pain wasn't like him.

"Are you okay?" Cam asked.

"I'm fine," John said.

_"He doesn't look fine,"_ Sipka opined. _"He's sweating, his pupils are dilated slightly, and he looks too pale. He also looks a bit underfed, but I don't think that's the immediate problem."_

"You look sick," Cam said. "How long have you been on your feet?"

"Not long," John said. At Cam's sharp look, he admitted, "Most of the day."

"Christ. You always were a self-destructive bastard. Have you at least taken anything for the pain?"

"A painkiller this morning, some ibuprofen at lunch, and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. I needed to be sharp today."

"That's kind of what I thought. Come on, we're getting out of here."

John started to cross his arms, but stopped mid-motion because as soon as he raised his cane he started to list. "It's not that bad."

"I know exactly how bad it is. If you've been standing around for ten or twelve hours, it's a miracle you haven't fallen on your ass." As John continued to look intransigent, Cam added, "I will pick you up and carry you if I have to. Don't think I won't."

"Fine," John huffed after trying to stare Cam down for a minute. "Your place or mine?" He gave Cam a sly grin. "I can think of a few things to do even if I need to lay down."

"Well..." Cam hesitated for a moment. Mission protocol said to engineer a situation where John came into contact with a certain item in his bag and this seemed like a pretty good opportunity. It probably wasn't exactly what O'Neill had been thinking of at the time, although Cam sometimes suspected he knew more about Cam and John's short but memorable history than he let on. John needed his meds, though.

"Yours," Cam said. "But I've got a room on the fifth floor, so we can stop for my overnight bag on the way."

John gave him an odd look, as if he wondered how Cam even knew John was staying in this hotel, but he nodded. They made it to Cam's room without any trouble, but John stumbled as he stepped out of the elevator on his own floor. Cam caught him and helped support him for the last twenty feet to the door.

"I can walk by myself, you know," John muttered gruffly before heading into the bathroom, which Cam mentally translated as, "thank you."

"You're welcome," Cam said. "Take your pain meds."

"Yes, Mom." John reemerged with an orange bottle of pills in his hand. With exaggerated care, he opened it up, tapped out two pills, and dry-swallowed them. "Satisfied?" he asked.

"Yes."

John disappeared back into the bathroom and shut the door behind him this time. Cam heard the shower turn on a second later. He undressed and took the time to hang his uniform up properly in case he needed to wear it again in the morning, then flopped down on the room's only bed in his boxers. He turned the TV on and flipped through channels for a while. There was nothing particularly interesting on, just the usual mix of sports, game shows, and about seven different police procedurals, so he ended up on the Food Network by default. He had found that he enjoyed cooking even more now that he was doing it for two, and he was always on the lookout for new ideas. He'd managed to win over more than one obstinate Tok'ra leader with a good meal; they weren't exactly known for their culinary arts.

_"I can't imagine why we never developed the same obsession with cooking that people on your planet have, "_ Sipka said. _"You would think that we were fighting a millennium-long insurgency while living in tunnels. Oh, wait. We were."_

_"Shush,"_ Cam replied. _"I didn't hear you complaining about the teriyaki last week."_

_"I didn't say it was a bad obsession. I can think of worse."_ Sipka waited for a minute before asking, _"You don't have any plan at all, do you?"_

_"I had one, but somehow I don't think getting getting us both drunk and accidentally handing him the slate is going to work out."_

_"You do understand how important he is, yes?"_

_"I know exactly how important he is."_ Cam had paid attention at the briefing and read the reports, after all. After almost a year of delays, the Atlantis expedition would soon be more than just a proposal. In preparation, Project Narcissus had gathered intelligence from the hundred-plus universes they were in regular direct or indirect contact with. A relatively small sample of those had heard back from their own expeditions, but it had been pretty clear that John Sheppard was one of the major factors in the success or failure of the mission. That put him high on the list of potential recruits. Cam's problem wasn't that he thought John was unimportant, it was that he thought he was important in ways that weren't mission-oriented.

_"Trust me,"_ Cam told Sipka. _"Planning tends to go to waste with John."_

Sipka let out a mental sigh. _"I suppose I should expect nothing less from a Tau'ri."_

_"Hey, we've killed more system lords than you have."_

_"Youthful luck."_

_"We found your momma for you."_

_"The result of an admittedly ingenious intelligence-gathering method."_

John emerged from the bathroom, still a little damp and a lot naked. He looked completely exhausted and his eyes were droopy, but he managed to conjure up an amused smile when he saw what was on the TV. John turned off the lights and TV as he passed them, carefully sat down on the bed, and stretched out next to Cam.

"Do you have any lube?" John asked, nuzzling at Cam's neck and jaw. "I wasn't planning on having any company and didn't bring any."

"I do," Cam answered, "but we're not going to need any."

John pulled back slightly and looked at Cam with a quirked eyebrow. "I might like it rough, but lube's still kinda important."

"We're not having sex."

"We're not?" John said.

"You look like you're going to drop at any second," Cam explained. That, and Cam felt increasingly uncomfortable with their situation. "It'd be a bit awkward if you fell asleep while we were doing it."

John chuckled softly. "Yeah, I suppose it would. I expect a different answer in the morning, though."

"Don't you worry about that. I'll be up for anything that you are."

"I'll hold you to that."

They took a minute to get settled under the covers, until they were spooned up against each other and Cam had his arms wrapped around John. It was comfortable and familiar, even after all their time apart. There was one big difference, though, and Cam let one of his hands slide down John's body to the mess of scars on his hip and leg.

"You should have told me how bad it was," Cam said quietly. "I would have come."

There was a minute of silence, then John answered, "I know. I couldn't let you do that."

Cam sighed. "Water under the bridge, I guess. Don't do it again."

"Am I going to be seeing more of you?" John asked.

"Hope so."

"I'd like that," John mumbled softly.

Later, when John was soundly asleep, Cam carefully slipped out of bed and went over to his bag. He dug past the clothes and extracted the healing device -- "incentive", according to the authorization to take it off-base -- that was inside. He let Sipka take over, felt his hands move on their own as she put it on. They returned to bed and sat down at John's side, careful not to disturb him. For several minutes Sipka ran the device over his leg in scan mode.

_"There is little I can do for him,"_ she admitted eventually. _"The injury is simply too old and healed over already. Some of the minor damaged might be repaired and he could be made more comfortable, but to do more would require surgery. It would likely be a lengthy and painful process."_

_"Is there anything else we could do?"_

_"There may be something,"_ Sipka said. There was a slight hesitancy in her 'voice', something he hadn't often heard before. _"You know how Kelan's health has been lately. Tavek will soon need a new host."_

Cam understood immediately why Sipka was reluctant to bring it up. There were still many people at the SGC who found the Tok'ra creepy, even after seven years of working together. For that matter, there were still Tok'ra who thought the Tau'ri were too reckless and primitive to be true partners with. The thirty-odd pairs who were blended faced a small but noticeable level of isolation from both groups. It would be counterproductive to mention that to John, who didn't even have the examples of Sam and Jolinar or Jacob and Selmak to see the benefit, if he'd even consider blending. For that matter, Tavek might prefer to find a different host.

The more Cam thought about it, though, the more he thought it might work out. John had obviously adjusted well and he wasn't the sort to accept help that he wasn't comfortable. However, Cam had never known him to reject anyone or anything without at least giving them a chance, especially if Cam had suggested it. On the other side, Cam had only met Kelan and Tavek a few times in the months since he had been blended, but they had always been welcoming and remarkably active, given Kelan's extreme age. More than that, he remembered, in that odd way that he knew people he had never met and places he had never gone, that across all the hundreds of years Tavek had always been kind and generous, intelligent and witty, adventurous and eager to help others even in the face of disapproval from his supposed betters.

_"Do I sense an ulterior motive here?"_ Cam asked, thinking of the flood of warmth and affection he had felt on the occasions that they had met Kelan and Tavek.

_"Perhaps, although I would hardly call wishing all four of us to be happy an ulterior motive."_

_"John and Tavek probably would get along,"_" Cam thought. _"Maybe too well._" As they got back in bed, Cam decided that he'd find some way to get John to at least meet Tavek and Kelan, although he still didn't have a clue how he was going to even tell him about the entire aliens thing in the first place.

The next morning, the feeling of John rubbing his ass back against his crotch awakened Cam. Under other circumstances he would have been thrilled, but his conscience nagged at him. He gently pushed John away from him.

John groaned and rolled onto his back. He fixed Cam with a sleepy but accusatory look and said, "You said we'd screw in the morning."

"We can," Cam said. "Just... not this instant."

"I'm not broken, you know," John said, a bitter edge appearing in his voice. "You don't have to worry about hurting me."

"I know," Cam protested. "It's not that, it's... oh, hell. Hold on."

In a moment, Cam decided to throw subtlety and deception out the window. It was John he was dealing with, not some random scientist or soldier that had proved useful in some other universe, and he wasn't going to play around or hide his intentions. He climbed off the bed and went over to the dresser and his bag. He returned with a glossy black slate roughly the size of a thin paperback book. He handed it over to John.

"What's this?" John asked, accepting it with a bemused look and turning it over several times.

"Think about Atlantis," Cam told him.

"What, like the mythic city?" An instant later, a bright hologram appeared in the air above the bed. It wasn't the starcharts and navigational data that Cam had expected, but instead the image of large, snowflake-shaped city covered with tall spires.

John's jaw dropped open. "What is that?"

"The lost city of the Ancients," Cam said, staring at the image himself. He forced his attention back to John. "I didn't meet you here by accident, John. I was sent to recruit you. You've got a special gene that allows you to use certain kinds of alien technology. I was supposed to get you to touch that by accident, so that we'd have a plausible reason to pull you into our program."

"And so you just handed it over and told me to turn it on," John said with a chuckle. "Never send a Mitchell to do anything involving subterfuge."

"I can do subterfuge, just not with my friends," Cam said. He took a breath and added, "There's something else I need to tell you. We're not alone. About nine months ago, I was shot down and injured pretty badly. The only reason I can even walk is because of a good friend of mine."

Cam let Sipka take over. A moment later his own voice, suddenly resonant, said, "Good morning, John. I am Sipka of the Tok'ra. It is an honor to meet you. Cameron thinks quite highly of you."

To his credit, John only stared for a few seconds before he cautiously held out his hand. "Uh, nice to meet you too, Sipka."

"I bet you have some questions," Cam said.

"Oh, not at all," John replied easily. "I just want you to tell me everything."

Cam nodded and took a moment to get his thoughts in order. "For the last eight years, the Air Force has been operating an interstellar transportation device called the stargate out of Cheyenne Mountain...."


End file.
